Kansas Baskin-Robbins puts up ‘Tiger King’ sign saying ‘no relation to Carole Baskin’ and sees sales double
A Baskin-Robbins franchise in Kansas has found a unique way to rack up their sales and it is by deliberately disassociating their brand's name from one of the controversial characters that featured on Netflix's hit docu-series, 'Tiger King' - Carole Baskin.
Despite her surname matching with the first word of world-famous ice cream brand, Carole never really had any relation to the company. But one Baskin-Robbins store in Kansas decided to make the lack of connection crystal clear to its customers - a little promotional gimmick that helped the store boost its sales, TMZ reported.
On Sunday, the Junction City store updated its marquee to read: "No Relation to Carole Baskin."
Peggy Heldstab, who owns the local ice cream parlor said that the sign has been a great hit, and the day it went up, sales at the store doubled compared to the day before. She went on to explain that while she hadn't actually watched the Netflix docu-series herself, her son had and gave her the idea to change the sign because he thought it would be funny. She said she took his word for it.
The owner added that she was glad that her son had thought about it since the business needs all the customers it can get amid lockdown that has currently limited to carry-out and delivery. Heldstab has since started watching 'Tiger King' and said that despite what the sign read, she will be more than delighted to serve Carole if she hopped into the store sometime.
The leading controversy surrounding Carole at the moment is the mysterious disappearance of her first husband, Don Lewis, who was last seen in 1997 and has since been declared dead. His body was never found. Carole's nemesis and 'Tiger King' star Joe Exotic claimed in the series that she might have something to do with her husband's disappearance.
From burying him in a gas chamber to grinding Don in a meat grinder and feeding it to the tigers of the Big Cat Rescue zoo she owns - Carole has been accused of everything.
One of her old boyfriends, Alan Schreier, 70, who was in a relationship with Carole between 1999 and 2001, weighed in on what he thought about the controversy in an interview with Daily Mail.
"I met Carole about a year and a half after her husband went missing, so it was still fresh," recalled Schreier. "She told me that Don hung around some 'unsavory people.' She said he used to carry a lot of money around on him and she thought maybe somebody did something to him, perhaps kidnapped or killed him. Their marriage was faltering towards the end. She told me they were not getting along at all."
He also dished on the kind of love life they enjoyed during the time he was with her.
"We got along and she was very attractive. She usually dressed in cat prints, they looked good on her," he said. "We hit it off pretty quickly and started spending a lot of time together. We had a very good sex life, and she was quite affectionate with me. She had a very high sex drive, maybe that's why it lasted for over three years. She liked it in the hot tub, we got our money's worth for the hot tub!"
His son, Todd, a real estate investor, said that he discovered something fishy when he went to live with Carole and his father at the age of 15. "I never spoke with her about her ex-husband, but there was a big cement slab in the middle of the woods that never had an explanation on it. That didn't make sense to me. That always like that was the only red flag thing that stuck out with me," he said.
However, neither Schreier nor his son believed that Carole had murdered her first husband.
Schreier said: "I think it's bull spit. He was not nice to her. He was rough with her and so forth. So, you know, there's a part of me thinking, who knows? You know? I don't know. I still believe that she didn't do it."
Todd added: "Do I think Carol personally, like schlepped him in the back of a truck and ground him up and then fed him… no, absolutely not. Do I think that she might know like more than she's let anyone else know? Absolutely. How private and cold she is? She’s probably the world champion at keeping a secret."
Carole is currently married to Howard Baskin.